THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINRICH HEINE.

THE sea hath its pearls,

The heaven hath its stars;
But my heart, my heart,

My heart hath its love.

Great are the sea and the heaven;
Yet greater is my heart,
And fairer than pearls and stars
Flashes and beams my love.

Thou little, youthful maiden,

Come unto my great heart;
My heart, and the sea, and the heaven
Are melting away with love!

POETIC APHORISMS.

FROM THE SINNGEDICHTE OF FREIDRICH VON LOGAU, Seventeenth Century.

MONEY.

Whereunto is money good?
Who has it not wants hardihood,

Who has it has much trouble and care,

Who once has had it has despair.

THE BEST MEDICINES.

Joy and temperance and repose

Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

SIN.

Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.

POVERTY AND BLINDNESS.

A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is; For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees

LAW OF LIFE.

Live I, so live I,
To my Lord heartily,
To my prince faithfully,
To my neighbour honestly.
Die I, so die I.

CREEDS.

Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three

Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be.

THE RESTLESS HEART.

A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round; If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

Whilom love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it be

spoke ;

But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke.

ART AND TACT.

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

RETRIBUTION.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small;

Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

TRUTH.

When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch's fire, Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus truth silences the liar.

RHYMES.

If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers' ears,

They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs; For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own, They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known.

BALLADS.

THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR.

[THE following ballad was suggested to me while riding on the sea-shore at Newport. A year or two previous, a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors.]

SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast,
Still in rude armour drest,
Comest to daunt me !
Wrapt not in eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,

Why dost thou haunt me?"
Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the northern skies
Gleam in December;

And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe

From the heart's chamber.

"I was a Viking old!

My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,

No Saga taught thee!

Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;

For this I sought thee.

"Far in the northern land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the ger-falcon ;

And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.

"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;

Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark

Sang from the meadow.

"But when I older grew, Joining a corsair's crew, O'er the dark sea I flew

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With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led,
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.

Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long winter out;
Often our midnight shout
Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
Filled to o'erflowing.

"Once, as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender ;

And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendour.

"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade

Our vows were plighted.

Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,

Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.

"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory;

When of old Hildebrand

I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.

"While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,

So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.

"She was a prince's child,

I but a Viking wild,

And though she blushed and smiled,

I was discarded!

Should not the dove so white

Follow the sea-mew's flight,

Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?

"Scarce had I put to sea,

Bearing the maid with me,-

Fairest of all was she

Among the Norsemen !

When on the white-sea strand,

Waving his armèd hand,

Saw we old Hildebrand,

With twenty horsemen.

"Then launched they to the blast, Bent like a reed each mast,

Yet we were gaining fast,

When the wind failed us :

And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw
So that our foe we saw

Laugh as he hailed us.

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